Pfeiffer

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 ANTHONY HARRISON BAXTER, No. 2:21-cv-01268-DAD-AC (HC) Petitioner, ORDER ADOPTING FINDINGS AND

RECOMMENDATIONS AND DENYING

v. PETITION FOR HABEAS RELIEF CHRISTIAN PFEIFFER, Warden, (Doc. Nos. 1, 30) Respondent. 16 Petitioner is a state prisoner proceeding pro se with a petition for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. In his pending petition for federal habeas relief, petitioner challenges his 2018 conviction in the Shasta County Superior Court on two counts of first-degree murder on the grounds that: (1) he received ineffective assistance when his trial counsel failed to call two doctors as witnesses at the guilt phase of his trial—doctors who had evaluated petitioner in connection with the court’s sanity determination—in an attempt to negate the mens rea element of first-degree murder; (2) the trial court erred in excluding petitioner’s testimony regarding his own “mental retardation”; and (3) the…